


Back to Where You Once Belonged

by pene



Category: Glee
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-01
Updated: 2015-02-01
Packaged: 2018-03-10 06:29:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 848
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3280199
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pene/pseuds/pene
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>6.01 reaction fic in the second person</p><p> </p><p>  <i>Scandals is familiar. But it has never been a safe place. Not for you.</i></p>
            </blockquote>





	Back to Where You Once Belonged

**Author's Note:**

> This is Klaine fic, but it's also a response to an episode in which Blaine is dating David Karofsky. The boys are not reliable narrators, sometimes not even of their own hearts.

Scandals is familiar. But it has never been a safe place. Not for you.

Maybe for Blaine, surrounded by boys who like boys who like casual sex and dark corners, bright lights and beer and pink drinks with tiny umbrellas in them. Boys who make Blaine feel not just normal but like the dazzling rainbow-colored center of something that’s changing the world, even in Ohio.

Never for you. 

You’d forgotten that, some days, in New York. The city became home more easily than you’d ever thought possible. In it you could be exceptional and desirable. You could be watched in a new way. You could be surrounded by people who were… well not like you exactly but like themselves and so, in their way, just like you. In New York you were never the punchline of a joke. And so, surrounded by friends and successes and Blaine you fooled yourself into thinking you could be comfortable everywhere, easier everywhere. 

But you’re back in Ohio.

You should have known this would end with you on the bathroom floor, clutching yourself so your heart and lungs don’t just explode from your chest.

You thought he was waiting. Underneath it all you thought he was waiting for you.

You fill your lungs. There’s a world to face outside the cubicle door. There’s the bar, the people, the street outside, the drive home past the school, your empty room. A whole world to face.

So you pull yourself together. You’ve got this covered. You’ve pulled yourself together from worse than just heartbreak. You smile and you apologize and you make your escape. And maybe this was all about being direct about your feelings… but you did that already. You were direct. It’s okay to be proud that you are holding it together, even though inside you’re in pieces. You turn off the car radio. You drive in silence, with the sky black above you and with other people’s headlights too bright in your eyes. You know who you are and who you are not. You only have to pull over twice to cry.

Afterwards you’re glad that Blaine brought Dave with him. Because however much you forgave the things that were done to you, the name, Karofsky still sets off alarm bells up and down your spine. But this guy with his arm around Blaine, he’s all entreating smiles and hope. There’s no threat there anymore.

The threat was from something quite different. From Kurt’s own dreamy, wonderful Blaine Warbler looking for happiness and not finding it in Kurt.

**

Kurt leaves. He smiles under the rainbow-colored lights, and he shakes your hand and turns and leaves. Of course, he leaves part of himself behind. His face is still burned bright on your retina.

I’m here to get you back.

Your heart thuds in your chest.

“That went okay?” Dave says and smiles. But there’s a question mark at the end like he’s not quite as oblivious as he might seem.

You’re not quite sure why you brought Dave. It seems thoughtless now, and cruel to Kurt in a way you’d never intended. Your only thought had been moving on and pushing through this whole thing. Being an adult. Kurt’s back in Lima and you can hardly breathe with all the feelings inside you but this is what adults do.

Because of course you haven’t seen Kurt since you left New York. Kurt is just as beautiful and just as Kurt as he has ever been.

The day you left you stood with your mom and dad and choked on shameful tears as you shoved your things into a bag then stumbled stupidly down the stairs with them. You heard his key in the lock as you took a last look around the place that was maybe never quite your home. You didn’t want to see him. You were a failure and he was Kurt and polished and unreachable. When he appeared you wanted to dissolve into nothing.

He looked at you for a long time. “There are more things that are yours,” he said.

“Just keep them,” you said.

Maybe you regret that, a little, because it’s not like a lamp with tiny stars cut out of the shade matters as much as your heart and soul. But now you don’t have either.

You don’t have any illusions about what Kurt was doing in the bathroom. He pulled himself together but you know him. You’ll always know him. He’ll never be actor enough to fool you.

You feel guilty about making him cry. It aches. You’ve never, not really ever, wanted to hurt Kurt. But… the guilt makes you angry too. Because you appreciate Dave. You have been dating for almost three months and he’s made you smile, he’s made you happy. He has never made you feel anything but okay with yourself.

He has never really made you feel anything. 

You shake yourself and smile. Scandals is bright and loud and crowded. You are making this your place. Here you are amazing.

“It went okay,” you say. “Thank you for coming.”


End file.
